Breakpoint by Richard A. Clarke Page B

were from the other points in the Globegrid. They were doing test runs. The orange traffic is from within the U.S., other universities mainly. Some administrative, not sent to the Grid part of CAIN. Payroll, SCADA, and other things.”
    â€œSCADA?” Jimmy asked.
    â€œSupervisory Control and Data Acquisition. It’s the software program that runs digital controls for things like lights, heat, elevators. The devices communicate back to their SCADA system software manufacturer to tell it how they are,” Sanders explained. “Here, I’ll pull it out. So here are all the messages from MIT’s central SCADA system in orange, turning the exterior lighting on, dropping the heat after hours, monitoring the video-surveillance cameras.”
    â€œWhat was that purple traffic a second ago?” Susan asked. “There’s another one now.”
    â€œWell, it’s hard to say without knowing the codes they were using and what system in the building that was going to, but it was going to an Internet Protocol, or IP, address. MIT is unique for a school. It has its own class A range. So 18, that’s MIT, 280, that’s CAIN, 090, that’s probably the SCADA system’s subnet, and then 113. Maybe the elevator or something,” Sanders offered.
    â€œThe internet address of an elevator is 18.280.090.113?” Jimmy asked.
    â€œCould be, or an air conditioner. Everything that is remotely monitored or serviced or controlled has an IP address. So the manufacturer can see how it’s doing, diagnostics, fix it, whatever. This one is something that was probably made in China,” Sanders said, hitting away at the console.
    â€œWhy do you say that?” Susan asked.
    â€œPurple. On this program, traffic originating in China is shown in purple. And let’s see here, I will switch into MIT’s network…I can do that because I am faculty…so 090 was in fact the SCADA system and 113 was…a Siemens pump and a Westinghouse valve connected to the Boston Gas line…Oh, my God!” Sanders cried.
    â€œCan you run a trace route, Dr. Sanders?” Susan asked.
    â€œAh yes. I can reverse the path that one of the packets took last Friday, check the Border Gateway Protocal updates…”
    The world below them pulled back from the close-up on CAIN, showing what had happened five days earlier. The purple line ran from the MIT router to the Horizon Communications router in downtown Boston, across the United States paralleling Interstate 90, jumping through repeaters, to the Horizon Communications router in Seattle. Susan grabbed on to the railing, her head swimming at the speed of the changing landscapes below her. From Horizon Seattle, the packets ran across town to the PacWest Sytho router in a windowless telecoms hotel, out to the PacWest fiber beachhead repeater on the Washington coast that would later blow up, then under the Pacific, up onto a beach in Japan, through an internet peering point building in downtown Tokyo, through a Sprucenet router to a Chinatel owned router, back out underwater to China, up again to a beachhead, then through a Sytho router to Dilan city, to an internet peering point building, and on to the Dilan University system, and finally to an address on the university campus.
    â€œWe’re gonna need to take that information with us, Dr. Sanders,” Jimmy said as he pulled out his PDA. “It’s evidence, and I’ll need to establish chain of custody.”
    1600 EST
Twin Oaks Estate, Woodley Park
Washington, D.C.
    â€œAmbassador Rubenstein, it is an honor to welcome you to the Residence,” Lee Wang enthused. “I don’t believe you have been to this historic house before.”
    â€œThank you, Ambassador Wang for receiving me in your home on such short notice.” Sol Rubenstein gave his overcoat to the waiting butler. “And you’re right, I haven’t been here before. I had no idea there was a